1. 13 November 2018
Sustainable cities: interfacing informal and formal curricular opportunities with the community
Education Excellence Seminars 2013
Hannah Tweddell, Ash Tierney, Chris Willmore Google: ESD at Bristol

2. What are the drivers for student community research partnerships?
13 November 2018
What are the drivers for student community research partnerships?
Q What would a wordle of your institution’s community engagement show? What would you Student unions engagement wordle show? What are the opportunities?

3. Building Student Community Research Partnerships
13 November 2018
Building Student Community Research Partnerships
Aim:“To create a culture where students are enabled and supported to research in partnership with communities”
Predicated on bringing theory and practice together in systematic long term relationships to make a difference and be different
Underpinned by research by Max Wakefield UBU Vice President Community and Maggie Leggett Centre for Public Engagement UOB

4. What can we aim to achieve?
13 November 2018
 That graduates understand and have experience of:
every action has consequences:
think long term;
responsibility to others;
collaboration ;
can envisage a future world and their role in creating it;
that different disciplines bring different things to the table;
can have interdisciplinary conversations;
the richness of integrated theory and practice:
Making a difference and being different walk the walk AND talk the talk

5. 13 November 2018
Aim:
“To ensure all students have an opportunity to develop an understanding of sustainability and have
an integrated experience of theory and practice in  
their formal, informal and subliminal curriculum.”
UOB ESD Strategy
Bringing theory and practice together in research rich opportunities Action+reflection = education

6. Action + reflection = education
13 November 2018
Action without reflection is activism.
Activism is not necessarily the role of a University
Reflection without action is theory.
The place at the centre of the circles is the place where all aspects come together: formal and informal curriculum, research and the physical community we are in.
Action + reflection = education

7. INFORMAL CURRICULUM ESTATES COMMUNITY FORMAL CURRICULUM RESEARCH
ESD can take place in the formal and informal curriculum, and is part of a university-wide sustainability agenda.
The University of Bristol has developed a 5 ring model of ESD.
As well as the formally taught curriculum, learning about sustainability can occur;
informally through volunteering, involvement in societies and taking skills based training;
through interaction with the Estate from Biodiversity to using recycling facilities and buying fair trade products;
finally as a research led institution our students are in a position to learn from cutting edge research in sustainability.
These four areas sit within a wider context of community, local, national and international. This ESD strategy aims to include all five of these elements in a holistic manner to provide a broad sustainability student experience.
A University can only be truly sustainable if it manages both ESD and operational impacts.
COMMUNITY
FORMAL CURRICULUM
RESEARCH

8. What students say…..
13 November 2018
SD is viewed as an alternative and abstract thread – tree hugging. It needs to be academically rigorous
Disconnect between theory and application e.g. much attention is given to the philosophical aspects but this is not applied to the real world
Some faculties focus on a narrow perspective of SD
Want more project work to make SD more concrete and embedded
Want new paradigms to be offered, e.g. reimagining how economics is studied
Informal curriculum opportunities could be incorporated into the curriculum e.g. Green Impact or Engineers Without Borders

9. Research project focus
Formal curriculum
toion13 November 2018
Research project focus
Community as subject or object of research – done about or done to
Problems of action research
Research ethics approval
Timescales
Limitations of field trips/ case studies

10. Informal curriculum activism
13 November 2018
High levels of student activity
100,000 hours a year via 30 projects; 250 societies
Life style setting
Guide to sustainable living
Freshers and moving out of hall lifestyle
Structured learning:
Water and energy audits
Disciplinary Societies
E.g. Engineers without Borders
Major student led initiatives
Food cycle:
Big Give 20 tonnes a year so far

11. Making the links; scaffolding to reflective practitioners
13 November 2018
SOCIAL JUSTICE
SYSTEMS THINKING
LIFESTYLE
SOCIAL TIME
ACTION
THEORY

12. Case Study Area of priority social need facing cuts in youth provision
13 November 2018
Area of priority social need facing cuts in youth provision
Wanting research that is independent of local providers to inform decision making
Brokered link to UOB Student wanting to do a project on young people and sexual health for her Masters dissertation
Wins
Student gets fee plus active community support to get access to study cohort
Community get independent and objective study
Community led - Community steering group Report being actioned: direct impacts on major investment c £200k a year
Compatibility; timeline & ethics
But TWO parallel activites

13. At the centre of the circle
13 November 2018
Bristol Bike Project
Previous Uni likd wth BBP
Student volunteers
Student designs ug project to meet BBP need
Student gets paid internship with BBP
From the inside helps build relationship with Uni
Bristol Bike Project is a voluntary organisation that works with underprivileged communities to help develop skills around maintaining bikes, and to provide them with the bikes once they are road-worthy.
Outcomes
Community get works done using Uni skills
Student reflective and applied learning
By adding in the formal project element
student able to go into much more detail than would have otherwise been possible, or affordable, for the Bike Project.
Project report useful forBBP particularly for funding bids

14. Farmers Market: theory to practice
13 November 2018
Started in formal curriculum
Global environment and Human Health
Direct action research so methodology and purpose is about learning through doing something that has an impact
OUTCOMES
Students have learnt how to identify and deliver opportunities for change on the ground
Linked formal curriculum, informal and estates to achieve direct community impact : there would not be a regular farmers market on the precinct without the unit.
Formal curriculum task
Taken up by Student activism
Used by students staff and community
Embedded in estatesprovosiond
Learning outcomes of designing health impacts achieved

15. embedded elective opportunity whole programme
Embedded provison
13 November 2018
individual student
embedded elective opportunity
whole programme
Whole institution e.g. Alberta

16. Whole programme student community research
Project to provide systematic community research project opportunities in Engineering
3rd year research projects and 4th year design projects
Kate Miler Centre for Public Engagement

17. Led by undergraduate interns
Undergraduates interns set up the placements scheme:
scoping potential community placements
Contacting and liaising with community partners
Co-designing feasible projects
Recruiting academic supervisors
Technical knowledge of engineering problems
Knowledge of civil engineering course
Potential to inspire their peers

18. Outcomes (year )
11 projects scoped with 8 community partners
9 projects obtained academic supervisors
6 projects (but 7 groups of students) taking place
Projects underway...

19. Findings Supervisors: Interns: Community partners: Students:
Need to consider what they get out of it
Importance of matching research expertise to project
Community partners:
‘Ownership’ of projects – meeting their needs
Long term relationship potential- project pipeline
Constraints – timelines
Interns:
Change agents
Valuable experience,
Project brokerage working with wide range of partners
Inspired them to do projects
Students:
Theory/Practice/ Research link
Enhancing skills

20. Challenges Key future questions:
Assessment of projects (especially as part of wider curriculum)
Linking to Intended Learning Outcomes of programme
Need to consider value to all partners involved in project
Key future questions:
Mapping the drivers for setting up
a scheme
How best to scope schemes
Tackling the barriers
Scalability and sustainability

21. Building Student Community Research Partnerships report
13 November 2018
Building Student Community Research Partnerships report
Aim:“To create a culture where students are enabled and supported to research in partnership with communities”
Research study and institution wide recommendations
by Max Wakefield UBU Vice President Community and Maggie Leggett Centre for Public Engagement UOB
Student Green Fund and European Green Capital 2015 impetus

22. Student perceptions Satisfaction of tangible results
13 November 2018
Satisfaction of tangible results
Learning to interact with new groups of people in a sensitive way
Opening up life possibilities not previously considered
Developing new skills
Deeper understanding from contextualisation
Working with communities was far less solitary than research can be
The projects were really fun.
Compatibility of traditional single-disciplinary research and real-world community outcome requirements; new methodologies and logics.
More autonomy than an internship but under the University wing
Benefits of and need for reciprocity
Increased awareness of the need for reflexivity in the real world
Builds sustantial relationships with the community: reduces student transcience

23. It is part of what a University is to contribute to the community.
13 November 2018
Very often expectations were exceeded, in fact far exceeded. There is often a multiplier effect. There have been very few times when nothing has been delivered. Delivery is always at the very least interesting and useful for discussion or provocation. Instances where insights contributed which would not have materialised otherwise.
It’s dangerous to expect too much of them, best to take the opportunity to go with the flow... Having said that, any expectations I did have were superseded – my every day expectations were mundane, it has developed into something more, something much bigger.
What’s the point in being in Bristol if you’re not going to contribute to it?
It is part of what a University is to contribute to the community.
It breaks down in many ways the biggest problem of the ivory tower scenario:: students/academics can be totally isolated from societies, losing an understanding of how society works and how the rest of the world understands things.
By sensitising the University to it you are also making the University learn better what it is in society – this is the most valuable bit: research partnerships encourage reflexivity both within the university and the community partners.

24. Headline report conclusions
13 November 2018
Brokerage
Developing links between students, academics community
Articulating drivers /benefits for all parties
Templates to define expectations without bureaucracy
Building long term relationships
Timeline experience
Scaffolding
Interdisciplinary experience
Peer to Peer
Examples of projects
Explicit links
Reflective practitioners
Resource centre
The ‘two masters’/ autonomy issue

25. 13 November 2018
GOOGLE: ESD at Bristol for resources and contacts
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